The ambassador from Jugendheit, Baron von Steinbock, was not popular in Dreiberg, at least not among the people, who still held to the grand duke's idea that the kingdom had been behind the abduction of the Princess Hildegarde. The citizens scowled at his carriage, they scowled at the mention of his name, they scowled whenever they passed the embassy, which stood in the heart of the fashionable residences in the König Strasse. Never a hot-headed Dreiberger passed the house without a desire to loot it, to scale the piked fence and batter in the doors and windows. Steinbock himself was a polished, amiable gentleman, in no wise meriting this ill-feeling. The embassy was in all manner the most important in Dreiberg, though Prussia and Austria overshadowed it in wealth and prestige.
At this moment the people gazed at the house less in rancor than in astonishment. The king of Jugendheit was to marry her serene highness! It was a bad business, a bad business; no good would come of it. The great duke was a weak man, after all.
The menials in and about the embassy felt the new importance of their positions. So then, imagine the indignation of the majordomo, when, summoned at dusk one evening to the carriage gates, three or four days after the portentous news had issued from the palace, he found only a ragged and grimy carter who demanded peremptorily to be admitted and taken to his excellency at once.
"Be off with you, ragamuffin!" growled the majordomo.
"Be quick; open the gates!" replied the carter, swinging his whip threateningly.
"Go away!" The majordomo spun on his heels contemptuously.
"I will skin you alive," vowed the carter, striking the iron with the butt of his whip, "if you do not open these gates immediately. Open!"
There was real menace this time. Could the fellow be crazy? The majordomo concluded to temporize.
"My good man," he said conciliatorily, "you have brains. You ought to know that his excellency will receive no man in your condition. If you do not stop hammering on those bars, I shall send for the police."
The carter thrust a hand through the grill. There was a ring on one of his fingers.
"Imbecile, set your eye on that and admit me without more ado!"
The majordomo was thunderstruck. Indeed, a blast from the heavens would have jarred him less.
"Open, then!"
The majordomo threw back the bolts and the carter pushed his way in. That ring on the carter's finger? The majordomo felt himself slipping into a fantastic dream.
"Take me to the baron."
Vastly subdued the majordomo preceded the carter into the office of the embassy. There he left the strange guest and went in search of the baron. The ambassador was in his study, reading.